12:31 8/29/2020
katie wills evans
it’s 12:31 on a saturday
what still feels like morning
on the day after the anniversary
in the middle of a too-close-for-comfort
heart-hurts-for-the-neighbors season
our nerves have been bad
and you’ve struggled to sleep
so while the fat baby raindrops of today’s daily summer shower are beautiful in the window the bang bangs of thunder
have my heart rate up
our phones are full of mourning
there’s not even a gasp of air between
new waves of grief
for a king
for so many
and Letetra said
make sure I say
father
cousin
son
uncle
human
all while there’s still no justice for Breonna
somehow we’ve gotten out of bed
somehow
more surprising still
we have found joy
we have reseasoned the food
and smoked the blunt
and sang the harmony parts
and dreamed and dreamed and dreamed
now you are at the other end of our couch
concentratedly strolling through assata’s autobiography
and i am chewing on Audre’s line
“Promise corrupts
what it does not invent”
while wondering how to look
my kids in the eyes on monday
i get startled again
(i am always startled)
by the mail woman on the porch moving from our mailbox to the neighbors’ and get annoyed before i remember to be grateful before i remember to be afraid again
and i suppose
as far as constant cognitive dissonance goes
this is as good as it gets
but how long
can we do this?
Bio: I'm a disabled, whitetrash, hardfemme abolitionist who’s been an emotional reader and unfaithful writer her whole life. I spent a glorious, heart-wrenching decade teaching and learning literature and civics in New Orleans with brilliant young adults and now write full time while traveling. I write a mix of poetry, essays, and short stories, manage a burgeoning newsletter and media platform, and have begun my first novel, specifically for queer young adults. Find me on Instagram and Twitter.
Your Music, Stoppered
Ayesha Asad
Let me take you back five years
ago, when we crossed our legs on
carpets that greened beneath us,
our bodies erupting in sound,
sweet-ridden rind
traveling in our lungs.
That moment, when chime spilled
into our throats & ears,
you reached for it
like you could pluck it from its root.
You always worked harder
to uncork your tongue from
the inside of your jawline – &
it hardly showed. Instead,
teachers bricked & basined you
with a boatload, probing out
a thirst you carried deep
in your walled skin. Riveted
& spurned, you looked to strangers on
Omegle to uplift you – & you flowered
in your own way, crowned through
your crafting & sprite painted wings.
In your chunky silvered
boots you patented your music,
searched out how to sew up your
prodded ligaments & blue-jointed
knuckles, extracted the seeds
that had weeded your throat
& holed your esophagus.
Look, let me tell you how it was
from my end. I hadn’t even
bloomed yet. I quieted
from lip to ankle. I didn’t know
what plane you angled on,
what line graphed the meridian
of your heart & lung.
Look, let me tell you
that when I speak this,
your voice lusters beside me. A star
on your pinky. How your limbs refuse
to burn out.
Ayesha Asad is from Dallas, Texas. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in PANK, Cosmonauts Avenue, Sundog Lit, DIAGRAM, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Menacing Hedge, Qu Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. Her writing has been recognized by Creative Writing Ink Journal and the Robert Bone Memorial Creative Writing Prize. She studies Literature and Biology at the University of Texas at Dallas. In her free time, she likes to dream. She was born in 2001. Find Ayesha on Twitter.
On Biting
Federica Santini
Creatures that bite:
dogs and other canids
the small insects that infect skin and scalp
long-fingered sirens with harsh voices
women convulsing at childbirth
(place a clean cloth between their teeth)
lovers
the recluse in her secretive cell
spiders
spiders
spiders
you with your mouth filled with life
Federica Santini lives in a pink Victorian in Atlanta, GA, and teaches Gender and Women's Studies and Italian at Kennesaw State University. A literary critic, poet, and translator, her work has been published in over forty journals and volumes. Her first chapbook, Unearthed, is forthcoming with Kelsay Press.